Many people practice yoga today. According to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2018, 14.3 percent of Americans are now practicing some form of yoga. While practicing yoga was common a decade ago, it is completely mainstream today. Yoga classes are increasingly accessible, and it is easier than ever for people to learn yoga themselves.
Yoga practitioners perform various stretching and meditation exercises during a yoga class or session. Instructors might choose different stretching exercises in different classes, although almost all classes will feature brief relaxation periods after sets of challenging poses. The poses all have names, and some poses tend to be more difficult than others.
There are yoga classes, videos, and tutorials available for beginners, intermediate practitioners, and experts. People with tight muscles might struggle with yoga at first, especially if they have tight hamstrings. However, after practicing yoga for an extended period of time, most people develop more flexibility. They can tone their muscles and experience improved blood circulation. An increasing number of mental health professionals are also recommending yoga for their patients.
Neurological Benefits of Yoga
Many people specifically practice yoga for the physical health benefits. However, individuals who have anxiety disorders are also frequently told that they should try yoga. It is an exercise program that has worked for many people. The mental benefits may be more significant than the physical benefits, which are all strongly connected.
Practicing yoga can enlarge the hippocampus region of the brain. The processing of memories partly occurs in the hippocampus. Patients struggling with Alzheimer's disease often have atrophied or abnormal hippocampal structures.
Yoga students and instructors frequently have signs of increased volume in the amygdala sections of their brains. Since the amygdala brain region is strongly involved in emotional regulation, drug addiction patients could strongly benefit from a neurological change like this.
Doing yoga regularly may also expand or improve the brain's prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is active when people make decisions, consider their options, plan ahead, and perform multiple tasks at once. Some of the people who struggle with drug addictions have issues with these specific cognitive abilities, since the drugs can directly damage or influence the prefrontal cortex. It is possible that yoga could reverse some of those effects.
Some of the neurological changes that yoga can cause have been correlated with improved scores on emotional regulation or cognitive exercises. Some people with emotional regulation problems turn to drugs for help, so these improvements may make them less likely to rely on drugs for the same benefits. Addiction can also have a negative impact on a person's emotional regulation abilities, so yoga may help a person restore the balance that was disrupted by a chemical addiction.
Yoga helps significantly with emotional stress management, which could be the direct cause of some of these mental health benefits. However, stress management has plenty of additional psychological and physical health benefits of its own. Addiction recovery causes stress, and so does addiction. People sometimes try to relieve stress by using drugs. Stress management can truly help at all parts of this process.
Aerobic forms of exercise are known for having cognitive and psychological benefits as well as physical benefits. Something as simple as walking could make the hippocampus of the brain bigger. It seems that this may also be the case for anaerobic forms of exercise like yoga, illustrating the importance of the link between a person's psychological and physical health.
The Body and Mind are Not Separate
Many people speak as if the body is just a vessel for the mind. People still say that psychological problems are “all in someone's head”. It is a popular belief today, and it has been for a long time.
However, the brain is itself biological, and it is just as much of an organ as any other. The substances that people ingest all affect the brain. Many factors can influence the blood flow that reaches the brain. The damaging effects of psychological stress on the body are very well-documented. There is no real controversy about whether or not stress is bad for a person, even if that stress is purely psychological in nature.
Yoga is capable of lowering an elevated heart rate and high blood pressure levels. It is also very helpful for reducing a person's psychological stress. It is possible that those sets of benefits are separate. However, in all likelihood, it is because they are strongly connected.
Stress can cause blood pressure and cardiovascular health problems. It is also responsible for indirect psychological problems, while acting as a psychological problem in its own right. The aerobic exercise that helps the whole body helps the brain, even when it comes to intellectual and cognitive tasks.
A person's psychological health and physical health are intertwined. Systems that help one will absolutely affect the other, since there is no true separation.
When it comes to yoga therapy for addiction recovery, patients have experienced incredible breakthroughs along their journey to sobriety.